Coming Home
by SniperCT
Summary: Rachel has been very unhappy. She's butting heads with everyone, and the person that means the most to her is far away. It's time to go home. Set sometime after Battle of the Atom.


There had only been so much that Rachel could take. It felt like she'd increasingly been slamming into a wall with everyone at the Jean Grey school. She couldn't stand Storm's leadership style and the two women kept butting heads. She simply felt like she no longer belonged, and she'd made some serious mistakes that she was deeply ashamed of.

And really, she could trace the last vestiges of her happiness vanishing to the day Kitty left. She'd been mad. And she'd felt betrayed, and then she'd felt horrible because she should have seen it coming. The signs had all been there, and Kitty had simply taken the people she was charged with teaching to some place where they'd be allowed to make their own choices. Rachel was too familiar with having her agency torn from her. Her feelings of betrayal had quickly faded into depression. Her anchor was hundreds of miles away, she was directionless, and she felt _so_ unwanted. It gave her a lot of time to think. To turn over things in her head.

But her anchor was also with her father. Rachel couldn't even boil down her emotions into something comprehensible. Of all people, Scott fucking Summers should have understood the power he was dealing with. He should have rejected it. He could have. Couldn't he? She didn't blame him for Xavier. For going Dark. If they could forgive her mother, they could forgive Scott that. And then there was the matter of her mother from the past which she'd steadfastly ignored. So she was due for some conversations.

If she was truthful to herself, Rachel knew that those were only extra excuse. The reason that she was here, standing in the snow in Canada, was the brunette woman approaching her. "Hey."

"Hi..." Kitty rubbed her arm nervously. She hadn't seen Rachel since Kurt's welcome back party, and the redhead had seemed preoccupied. She hadn't taken the chance to talk about why she'd left. It hadn't felt appropriate. But right now the words came spilling out. "I know you're probably mad. But hear me out. After everything that happened, I couldn't just sit and take it. I believed in them, they could have trusted me, but they didn't."

"Kitty, I need to tell you something." Rachel tried to interrupt.

"Scott might be a lot of things but at least he believes in choice, and..."

"I've been thinking about this for -" Rachel realized that she wasn't going to get through to Kitty that way, so she pulled the brunette closer, and kissed her. Instantly, everything felt _right_. Pieces falling together, years of closeness and friendship and an underlying tension that they'd pretended hadn't existed.

Kitty froze, at first, before she melted into Rachel's arms, threading her arms around the redhead. She'd thought about it, especially after Xi'an. But she'd never wanted to risk her friendships and the people she'd want to make herself this vulnerable to she could count on one hand. Rachel had always been on the edge of her mind when she'd had those thoughts. And maybe a part of her felt she didn't deserve it. She felt Rachel's mind open to her and she took a psychic step forward.

_Oh god, how long have you...?_

_Years, I guess. If you include self-denial._

_What if we fuck this up?_

_For the first time since I got back from Shi'ar space, I feel right, Kate._

"Wow. Wow wow..." Bobby kept saying wow until someone elbowed him. To his left, Hank was rubbing his jaw.

Illyana was smirking as she watched her friend, and held out her right hand. Scott dropped a hundred in her palm, his expression unreadable.

It was Rachel who finally broke the kiss. "Kitty.. I know my name isn't Peter, and it doesn't even begin with 'P' but...I really love you."

She rolled her eyes. "You're going to need a room." _My room._

_Our room? Won't people talk?_

Kitty jerked her thumb behind her. "I kinda think we've already passed that roadblock."

"I don't even..." Jean had her hands in her hair. Her teacher and her _daughter_ were kissing. They were kissing. They were really, really into it kissing. She could barely deal with Rachel's _existence_, let alone _this_. She turned to Laura besides her. "That's an _option_?!"

"Yes."

"Have you ever thought about it?"

Laura just shrugged.

Jean turned to the person on her other side. Because now she was thinking about it and she didn't know what to do about it.

Emma glanced at the redhead, both of her eyebrows disappearing into her hairline. "No. It's _never_ going to happen, darling."


End file.
